Even as His Ex, Rosario Dawson Says She Can Still Read Danny Boyle’s Mind

The thriller Trance has a dark, twisty plot involving hypnosis, and to prepare, Vincent Cassel tried being hypnotized himself. “It didn’t work on me,” the actor said at the New York premiere on Tuesday. “It didn’t work on me. It didn’t work on Rosario,” he said, referring to Rosario Dawson, who plays a hypnotist in the film. “It didn’t work on the cast, actually,” Cassel said, laughing.

But he did say the process was relaxing: “You have somebody talking to you, and you just have to be careful not to fall asleep.”

Director Danny Boyle didn’t try it, he told us, because he was fearful of divulging intimate details, such as the movie’s finances, should he be among the five percent of the population that is extremely suggestible. “You know, so much can go wrong if you went into a trance, so I didn’t,” Boyle told us.

However, Boyle’s reluctance was no match for Rosario Dawson, who had done extensive research for her role as a hypnotist in the film. When VF Daily asked Dawson whose mind she’d want to scrutinize via hypnosis, she looked directly at Boyle, who was nearby, and announced, “Julien Donkey-Boy? Isn’t it really great?” Boyle nodded, nonchalantly. Julien Donkey-Boy, an obscure Harmony Korine movie, she explained to VF Daily, was what Boyle had been thinking about at that moment. “See, I already got into his mind,” Dawson said. “See? I already did it!” she added, laughing.

We have no idea if she ever snapped Boyle out of his trance later in the evening, which moved from the screening in Chelsea to a party at a triplex penthouse in SoHo, which is currently on the market for $14 million.

Near the kitchen, where chefs were making fresh dumplings and noodle dishes, Marina Abramovic told us that she’d love to hypnotize the Dalai Lama. “Of course, I would want to know all about reincarnation, and if there is really life after death,” Abramovic said. “I really want to do that.”

Cindy Sherman had a more practical view; she’d want to get inside the head of an incredible money manager. “So that I would know how to invest my money,” she said.

The Walking Dead star Norman Reedus wants to hypnotize__Pee-wee Herman.__ “I just want to know exactly what went down, and, you know, Pee-wee’s Big Adventure is one of my favorite movies, so I’d probably just hypnotize him and make him reenact that movie,” Reedus said. Sounds totally reasonable, doesn’t it?

And we wondered if perhaps Rosario Dawson had made a subconscious suggestion to Patrick Stewart, when he marched over to us at the Cinema Society/Montblanc–hosted party and, unbidden, revealed that he has a secret skill. “I have a power. If you had hiccups, I can cure it, instantly,” Stewart told VF Daily.

How does he do that? “It’s through thinking it away,” the Star Trek legend said, and then took in our incredulous look. “No, truly,” he said. “He really, legitimately can,” added his fiancée, Sunny Ozell.“His kids will call him over the phone, and he can do it across the ocean, over the phone,” she said.

“I walked into a store where a girl was hiccupping in the summer, and she didn’t know I was doing it, but I stopped it,” Stewart said. “I’ve been able to do it for about 40 years.” Captain Picard to the rescue.